


just look through that telescope and i'll be there waiting. always.

by godtierhomie



Category: IT (1990), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adult Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Adult Richie Tozier, Angst, Boys In Love, Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier Deserve Happiness, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Endgame Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Flashbacks, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, I Love Eddie Kaspbrak, I'm Sorry, IT Chapter Two Fix-It, IT Chapter Two Spoilers, M/M, Mike Hanlon Deserves Love, Mike Hanlon Deserves Nice Things, Mike Hanlon is a Good Friend, Movie: IT Chapter Two (2019), Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Pre-IT Chapter Two (2019), Reunited and It Feels So Good, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier is a Mess, Soft Eddie Kaspbrak, Soft Richie Tozier, Stop Forgetting, They deserved better, i miss eddie kasprak, i miss them, i'M SAD, i'm emotional, these mfs forget
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:42:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25321084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godtierhomie/pseuds/godtierhomie
Summary: Richie Tozier loves Eddie Kaspbrak and the stars that connect them :(
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon/Ben Hanscom/Eddie Kaspbrak/Beverly Marsh/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	just look through that telescope and i'll be there waiting. always.

Richie falls in love with Eddie on a night the sky is peppered with diamonds, in the town they grew up in, while Eddie talks about the stars.

If you could call it love. Eleven year old boys are hardly the oracle of something like love. People go to them for comic book summaries and scooter tricks and to hear their most creative stories. But love? Never. Puppy love, maybe.

But even then, it's still a type of love.

Eddie was talking about something he'd learned in class regarding space to everyone there: Mike, Ben, Bill, Stan, Bev; who are either closing their tired eyes or talking amongst one another, private conversations Richie can hardly imagine the borders on. 

Eddie goes on, something about how the stars they were looking at now were actually dead; millions of years dead, really, but the light projected from them is trapped in time. He's going a mile a minute, and all Richie can think about is how much he loves Eddie's voice and his passions and his interests.

And then Eddie talks about how maybe, years from now, they'll be looking at the same stars they are right now. And Richie lays there, in the same spot as he has been for the past ten minutes, struggling to believe he's the only groupie in this concert. A part of him wants to chide the others, scream, 'Why aren't any of you listening? How could you want to miss his voice?' 

Another part of him, however, is melting with some sort of relief. 'No one else can listen to this! Only me! I have him all to myself!'

And when it comes to a small lull of time to think about what he's going to say next, Eddie turns his head, looks at Richie, and smiles.

Of course, a lump forms in his throat and he's flushing so bright he's sure Eddie can see it even in the darkness. So Richie does the only thing he knows how to do flawlessly -- he talks. He joins right in, picking up where Eddie left off, going on and on about how maybe it means something much more than it leads on to be, about how maybe it's some sort of metaphor for everlasting love. And Eddie smiles, and he doesn't act surprised at Richie's sudden act of wisdom -- almost as if he had been expecting to hear it this entire time. 

When he can, he jumps in, saying it's what he thought, too, and how even though his dad was long dead, the stars reflect a time that he was still alive and well, and if he can just find a way to look through some sort of super-powered telescope, he'll be able to see him, still smiling. Richie's heart warms, and when Eddie chokes up at the thought of his lost father, he takes his hand and entangles their fingers together, and they cry as one for the loss and maybe something even deeper. It's completely silent apart from the others talking, their tears falling unnoticed.

It's just the two of them -- just the two of them together. The two of them in this shit-hole of a town, locked in an oasis of their own, both with keys they have, but choose not to use. Just them and the stars and the words they know like the backs of their hands but are too afraid to say. Eddie's euphonious words, Richie's rough tone. Unmatched resonance, yet a memory of love to carry with them forevermore.

Gestures like this, their hands sandwiched together, mean a lot in their little duo. They mean the world. So while the Losers are chatting and resting among the ground with heavy eyelids, Richie and Eddie hold hands, feel the wet blades of grass against their shirts and the bare skin in between, smiling and watching the intricate patterns of the sky as they mix and tangle together.

But where does one go from here? From this perfect memory, this moment stamped in time, a beautiful and kind and lovely portion of their history?

Down, it seems.

They grow up, every one of them, and though the stars they'd seen that night remain the same, the Losers change. They only return to Derry upon Mike's request, and although under the yellowed lights of the Jade of Orient with so much dread and responsibility stamped on their figures, Richie and Eddie still have the same unspoken bond. How could they have forgotten each other?

And now, reunited with Eddie, all Richie knows is that his puppy love has morphed over the years, despite having forgotten each other, into something bigger and bigger and much more important to hide.

Because a boy couldn't love a boy. Not in Derry. And Richie couldn't love Eddie. Because Eddie is clean, and he showers every night, and he's all prim and proper, and Richie is still as dirty and foul-mouthed as ever. Neither of their mannerisms have changed a bit.

A few days later and a part of Richie dies with Eddie, stuck behind with the man when they leave him under Neibolt, forever gone. When everyone leaves Derry, Richie clings to whatever memory of Eddie he has left, and he cherishes it like a second skin.

He calls Bill twice a week for a year. Bill is the only one to understand death, to understand survivor's guilt, in the way Richie does -- and even then, sometimes it's not enough; but he's sweet and he's sympathetic in a way that Richie craves on the bad days, so he calls anyways, sobbing, screaming hysterically about how he wasn't enough to save Eddie and he misses him and- ("Richie, listen to me," Bill's voice cuts through Richie's grief-ridden cries like a knife through butter. He takes a deep breath on the other end of the line. "What happened wasn't your fault. It will never be your fault. Or any of ours. He loved you, that's why he did what he did. And he saved us all").

The years following blur and smudge together, and Richie has stopped calling Bill but still dreams of Eddie. They're normally not the bad dreams he used to get -- instead they're young again, just the two of them, standing in knee-high grass under the stars and thinking that maybe there was some hope spared for them after all. 

He would wake up smiling, turn over in his bed, and then quietly cry until he fell asleep again. Maybe the dreams are what made him remember what the others seemed to have forgotten.

Because of course, slowly, slowly, over the years, Richie notices what was left of the Losers starting to forget again. They never forgot about each other, about the sacrifices they'd made, and all it took at first was a gentle nudge in the right direction to bring them back, but then the names and spaces in between started to slowly get jumbled up, mixed together, until they were forgotten entirely, and all Richie could do was sit back and watch.

He brings up Eddie's name once when the Losers are eating dinner together, celebrating Big Bill's fiftieth birthday. 

He doesn't mean to — it just slips out when Ben cuts his hand on the jagged edge of the table they're sitting at and Mike immediately pulls out a Band-Aid from some hidden pocket in his coat. Richie thinks something along the lines of, 'Mike adopted Eddie's job,' and he must've said it out loud, because Bev is looking at him with creased eyebrows and Mike has gone silent, holding the straight edge of a tan Band-Aid in between two fingers and pausing in time to watch Richie.

Bill speaks up next, after a considerable amount of silence, and asks, "Eddie?" It's as if he's never heard the name. 

Richie is dumbfounded. They'd forgotten a lot -- he knows that -- but how could they forget about Eddie? Did they even remember Stan?

"Yeah," he says. "You know, the boy with the fanny pack?"

Silence.

His voice cracks in desperation. "Short, mouth that ran a mile a minute? Soft hair? Hated being called 'Eds?'"

"Yeah..." Ben starts as if he is getting a lead on something, something underlying but huge, as if what he is thinking of is just out of reach... and then he pauses. "Oh, yeah, that one. I think I remember."

Richie and Mike exchange a glance, his eyes filled with urgency, Mike's with uncertainty. He looks away and puts the bandaid on Ben's hand, fixes his tie, sits down, and puts his napkin back in his lap. Richie is the only one still standing, sticking out like a sore thumb, and he thinks maybe it means something. He moves to sit with the rest of them.

Bev nods next to her husband, entangling their fingers and glancing towards the ceiling as if it will help her think more clearly. She squints. "Yeah, Eddie... K-something."

"Kaspbrak." Richie finishes, and nobody makes any implication that it means something to them. Bill starts to talk about his job.

Later, they're fifty-six. Richie is eating dinner with Ben and Bev. There was a short lull in the conversation and Richie found it a perfect time to jump in.

"Do you guys still remember Eddie?"

They're still married, Bev's ring a flashy thing around her finger that she liked to play with when she was nervous or sad or bored. Tonight, she didn't touch it, and her slightly wrinkled hand laid at rest on the table.

"Eddie who?" She asks for clarification, and Ben looks between her and Richie with the same question in his eyes.

"Kaspbrak. Ring any bells?"

"No... no, I don't think so." Ben says quietly, as if he's racking his brain to recall something about the name.

Richie presses them, gently of course, walking them through what Eddie had looked like, how he smiled with one side of his upper lip slightly higher than the other, how he hated germs and how he was always shorter than the other kids. How he once screamed when Stanley had tried to kick off the dog shit he had stepped in and it had nearly hit him ("Who's Stanley?") and everyone, Ben, Bev, Bill, Richie, Mike, had laughed. How he wore a fanny pack stuffed with medicines and Band-Aids and gauze. How his mom kept him from joining the track team, so at the meets, the Losers would cheer him on as he sprinted the hundred meter dash against the fence line beside the real runners and won first place three times.

Bev nods in acknowledgment and purses her lips in thought. After a beat of confused silence, she says, "Can't say I remember, Rich." Ben says the same thing, adding a small apology to the end for his troubles.

"Nah, don't worry about it. Just a memory... from a long time ago."

Richie lets it go, but doesn't forget to call Mike and Bill later that night.

Mike remembers some small details, but can never really get Eddie's first name right, confusing it with Freddie and then Stevie, to which had made Richie verbally snort and Mike apologize embarrassedly, and then Mike had stopped saying his name in general. Bill, whom Richie had stored the most hope, didn't remember at all.

A year later, though, Mike had forgotten everything, just like the others, and when he had apologized, Richie had painstakingly told him that Eddie was a name of minimal importance and that it was alright; that he had forgotten mostly everything, too. 

It was a lie. He remembered it all. He had taken a bathroom break and spent his due time eyeing the wall, a neutral expression on his face, completely unreadable.

That night, Richie, who couldn't sleep, had passed his fancy balcony and rounded the steps to get to the patio. From there, he climbed down, down onto the rich green grass that he couldn't very well see in the dark, specks of moisture from that day's rain getting all over his pajamas and staining the backs of them a deep grey color. 

It took a moment of adjustment and squinting to get the right view, but soon enough, the street lights began to fade and Richie could just barely make out the millions of twinkling stars in the distance, getting brighter and dimmer, shooting through the sky, a plethora of tiny white specks traveling forevermore.

He looks in the stars and thinks he sees it in them -- a brief memory, something insignificant, but played out so fully before his eyes in the twinkling brightness of the never-fading stars -- a time that he was young again, somewhere between ten and fifteen, laying beside Eddie among the grass and the stars and brilliant, shining moon, pointing out the constellations he knew and racking his brain to remember the ones he had read about in class months before to impress him. And then, they're crying together, and they're holding hands, and all is peaceful.

He closes his eyes and imagines the scene playing out once more. Eddie, older, skin starting to get wrinkly and hair growing grey at the roots, just like Richie's, laying beside him. They're silent, staring at the sky, admiring the bright flecks of paint against the infinitely large blue and purple and black canvas, laying together against wet grass and in the cold breeze blowing gently against their skin.

A tear drops from his eyes and rolls all the way down his cheek. Finally, it was Richie and Eddie, the two of them, just the two of them, again. How it was always meant to be. 

Richie smiles in peace, and his hand moves to find Eddie's across the grass. Their fingers tangle together, and he opens his eyes just as a shooting star passes overhead, brilliant and beautiful, unwavering and bright against the darkness of the night sky.

**Author's Note:**

> yo eddie and richie really have me feeling some typa way. anyways i kind of incorporated both the end of the original IT novel and the end of IT Chapter 2 in this, as in they eventually forgot each other (with the exception of richie ofc), but only the people that weren't physically with them. 
> 
> i really really hope you enjoy lol -- i've never written or published anything so i'm so so sorry if the formatting is weird. feedback would be great, and in general i love love love reading and replying to comments so please don't be shy to lmk how you liked it!! 
> 
> repeat after me: richie and eddie deserved better than what they got
> 
> repeat after me again: the losers' little pool party and benverly makeout sesh while richie was still crying over losing the love of his life was SO wrong


End file.
